Clinton

DAKAR, Senegal (AP):

Former United States president, Bill Clinton, said on Sunday that keeping HIV-infected children in the developing world well fed amid the pressures of skyrocketing global food and fuel prices will be crucial to fending off the deadly virus.

Speaking on the final day of a brief, four-nation Africa tour that began last week, Clinton said he saw children in Ethiopia who "cannot live'' because they were so malnourished they could not absorb lifesaving antiretroviral drugs into their bodies.

"If you look at the rising price of petroleum, the rising price of food around the world, we are all going to have to re-examine how we produce food, where we produce it, how we consume it,'' Clinton said. "It's not just a question of energy prices, it's not just a question of global warming. It's a question of how we are going to keep our kids alive."

Some 2.1 million people died of AIDS last year and at least 33 million people worldwide have the HIV infection, two-thirds of them in Africa, according to the United Nations. Clinton's foundation has negotiated agreements to lower the prices of rapid HIV tests and anti-AIDS drugs in the developing world and has collaborated with the Geneva-based UNITAID, a UN-backed fund that helps supply low-cost antiretroviral drugs. The drugs have made HIV a manageable illness for many patients and prolonged their lives beyond what once seemed possible.

Cheaper drugs

Clinton said that when UNITAID was created in 2006, the cost of antiretrovirals was US$600 - about a third the per capita income of Senegal and three times the per capita income of the poorest nations on the African continent. Today, the same drugs cost US$60.

"The same people who sell them today at US$60 did not all of a sudden have a conversion where they said, 'I'm being greedy and now I'll be generous.' They charged that because they had a small volume with a lot of fixed costs,'' Clinton said.

"Now, because of the UNITAID funding, there is a big volume with absolutely certain payments,'' he said. "So they can charge a small profit margin on each individual lifesaving medication.''

He cautioned, however, that "we're still along way from universal coverage''.

Indeed, of the 22 million people in Africa infected with HIV, only about two million have access to antiretrovirals, the UN says.